Report: Warriors trying to make room for Dwight Howard

According to ESPN, the Warriors are aggressively shopping centers Andrew Bogut and Andris Biedrins and forward Richard Jefferson. Why? Golden State wants to prevent the Los Angeles Lakers from stopping their Dwight Howard pursuit.

The Warriors are $11 million over the projected salary cap (at about $69.9 million including Kent Bazemore), not including the cap holds. That means in order to get Howard, the Warriors would have to agree to a sign-and-trade with the Los Angeles Lakers.

Reports are the Lakers aren't interested in working a sign-and-trade and would rather let Howard walk and save the luxury tax bill. And they certainly aren't keen on strengthening a division rival. And whatever hopes the Warriors have of convincing the Lakers to deal, many suspect, would involve giving up young stars Klay Thompson or Harrison Barnes.

But the Warriors don't want to give up either. According to a source, their pitch to Dwight Howard on Monday — in which I am told Mark Jackson shined — included Howard playing with Curry, Thompson and Barnes. Those prospects intrigued Howard, as Marc Stein reported. So much so, the Warriors are now actively trying to create enough salary cap space so they don't need to do a sign-and-trade with the Lakers.

It's a monumental task, to be sure. The projected salary cap is $58.5 million, which means the Warriors would need to cut their salary down to $38 million or less to have the space needed to pay Howard the max contract he commands.

Cutting that much money would require the Warriors moving their three major expiring contracts: Bogut ($14 million), Richard Jefferson ($11 million) and Andris Biedrins ($9 million). Dumping all three without taking any money back would chop $34 million off the Warriors' cap figure, getting them down to about $35 million. They would also have to renounce the rights to their free agents, including Jarrett Jack, to remove their capholds.

The difficult part is finding teams to take on those big contracts without getting anything (or much) in return.

The Warriors would need to find teams with enough cap space to absorb their expiring contracts. That's probably easiest to do with Bogut, because in addition to being an expiring contract, he is a legit center when healthy. Teams such as Portland, Atlanta and Cleveland are in need of a good, defensive center.

Then the Warriors could use a future draft pick to pair with Jefferson to sweeten his salary dump. To sweeten Biedrins' dump, the Warriors could send a team $3 million in cash considerations, trimming Biedrins' salary to $6 million.

Another route the Warriors can go is to raise the stakes and add David Lee's contract. Pairing Lee with one or more of the expirings would allow the Warriors to dump the contracts while also being able to take a contract back. For example, Bogut plus Lee and Biedrins is $37 million in salary. Golden State could take back up to $14 million in contracts and still would have accomplished the task.

But what if the Warriors trade Bogut and Howard decides to stay with Los Angeles or go to Houston? That wouldn't happen, per one source.

The Warriors are paving the way to be able to get under the cap if Howard says yes (which he hasn't yet).

At this stage, anyway, teams can only agree to deals. No trades can be completed until the league-wide moratorium ends. So if Howard chooses elsewhere, the Warriors can cancel the deals. They may even know Howard's answer before the moratorium ends anyway, if reports are true that Howard will decide by Friday.